Amazing
by the-dandiest-of-lions
Summary: Set after Countrycide, Janto. Jack comes to visit Ianto to talk, slash. First proper fanfic so I'm not sure if it's OOC or anything... Slightly angsty but because I love Janto there is optimism and a bit of fluff. Rated T for snogging and slight language.
1. Bruises

**All righty then. I don't want to be one of those people that goes "REVIEW PLZ" but I'm going to do it now because I'd like to know what people think... just like everyone else on this site. Hehe. So, REVIEW PLZ.**

**Disclaimer: Yep, I don't own anything, if I did I would have had happy endings all around. Instead bloody writers prove to be arseholes and kill everyone off. I really really hate that, but I love their brains anyway and I marvel at their cleverness. Okay, so I don't own anything, and I admire RTD and the BBC and whatever other acronyms are responsible for this show.**

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><p>He was broken after losing Lisa. He dimly knew that he had broken a while back, leaving parts of himself behind as he hauled Lisa out of the wreckage of Torchwood One. He had dragged them out of the chaos, the noise, all of the blood... and she had been the one thing he knew to be his constant. If he fixed her, he would fix himself. He'd left something behind, he knew that, some part of himself and only if he could make her <em>whole<em> again, he could find some kind of solace. So he worked.

Stupid.

He'd scavenged equipment from the remains, pushing away the voice in his head that wondered how Lisa knew what to tell him to take, wondered how far the conversion had gone. She _had_ to be human, she had to still be Lisa. He saw it in her face; in her pain and her love.

So he got the job at Torchwood Three. It was ideal; he was able to hide Lisa and immerse himself in the world he was now used to. The memories he had of Torchwood One weren't as painful; he was able to help people with his local knowledge all the while providing a cover to hide behind while he tended to Lisa.

Also, his incredible coffee had been part of that which cemented trust in his colleagues.

He never meant to hurt them. Sweet, kind Tosh; brash, crude Owen; and the enigmatic, mysterious Jack. And now Gwen, with her questions and her prodding, her curiosity and headstrong pushy ways. He liked his colleagues, who each had their place in the well-oiled machine that was Torchwood. He felt that he didn't have a place. He was, as Owen had christened him, the Teaboy. He'd never thought of himself as the one who kept the Torchwood machine so well-oiled and efficient.

Then after Lisa, after his plans had all gone so wrong and a hole had been ripped through him, after he went home feeling hollow and empty, he did what he always did. He went back to work. Owen carried out a full medical checkup, Tosh said she was there for him, Gwen kept her distance but was kind and Jack comforted him. Jack gave him kindness: light touches, warm smiles, nods of understanding. Ianto knew everyone was treading on eggshells around him, but Jack knew that what Ianto needed was something more than that. He needed to _feel_ again, to understand that there was a way out.

After the cannibals it started. Jack had turned up at Ianto's apartment to check on him that night, and found him in the bathroom, having slid to the floor and sitting against his bathroom cabinet under the sink after a dizzy spell. Sure, Owen had patched everyone up once they arrived back at the Hub and had prescribed strong painkillers and sleeping pills for Ianto. His broken ribs made it hard to move among many other healing breaks and bruises, and the sleeping pills would hopefully create a full and long night's sleep.

"Ianto?"

He jumped. He was sitting on the cool tiles of his bathroom floor, trying to get the energy to get up and shower. But that would require moving, and moving was painful. "Jack? I'm naked, don't come in... What do you want? Sir?"

"I've come to check on you." Jack appeared at the doorway of the bathroom, not caring about the slight case of nakedness. "How are you?"

"I'm alive," Ianto groaned. "How are the others? How's Tosh?"

"Tosh is fine, she was asleep when I called in. Owen and Gwen were, um," he hesitated, grimacing slightly, "otherwise engaged when I went to see them."

Ianto nodded and leant his head back, groaning. "Well, I'm okay too, you came and saw me, and now I need to shower. So you can go now."

Jack gave him a soft smile. Not the Captain Jack Harkness grin, but the one he gave to friends, lovers, family. In this case, of slight humour and reassurance towards the bruised Welshman sitting before him. "I'll still be here."

"Why?"

"We need to talk," Jack said as he turned, coat sweeping around, and made his way to the kitchen. "Coffee?"

"I'll make it!" Ianto yelled back frantically. He gathered his strength, wincing as he got up and after hearing Jack laugh, feared the coffee that was to come. He showered and dressed in jeans and a shirt, suppressing groans of pain and wincing, hissing through his teeth as he manoeuvred his raw body.

When he emerged from the bathroom Jack was sitting on his lounge, feet up on the coffee table. He got up when he saw Ianto and gently helped him sit down.

"I made you hot chocolate," said Jack softly. "You don't want to be kept up all night."

Ianto thanked him and took the drink, sipping the warm, sweet liquid and setting it down on the glass tabletop. "I have other drinks, beer and wine and that, if you want something else." Jack shook his head. "Why are you still here if it's not for my beverages?"

Jack smiled, laughing slightly. "I came here, like I said, because we need to talk, Ianto."

"We debriefed this situation back at the Hub. I mean, it wasn't too official or involved, we were all pretty tired and sore, but we're all sorted out. Owen has checked on all of us, and—"

"Not about today. Well, not really."

Ianto felt a wave of cold sweep through his body, as if ice had flooded his veins. He locked his gaze on his mug. "About Lisa." It wasn't a question.

Jack's silence was confirmation enough.

Ianto sighed. "Suspension helped." He looked at Jack. "You helped. Owen helped."

"How are you doing, though? I mean, you come back to work after all that, and you nearly get eaten!"

Ianto frowned. "Are you suspending me again? Giving me time off?"

"Well, I'm offering," Jack said. "If you feel like you need it..."

"No," Ianto said quickly. Jack looked taken aback. "No. I'm not weak, Jack. And—and you don't understand. I _need_ to be there, at Torchwood. What else can I do? What am I meant to do with these memories and these experiences?"

They looked at each other, both remembering their conversation on the pier. Ianto holding a coffee, Jack brushing him off. Tight jeans and a button-down shirt, a pterodactyl and a suit. Lying on the floor of a warehouse, staring into each other's eyes, captivated by each other, noses brushing, lips parting seemingly of their own accord, desire brushing them like a purring cat. _What am I supposed to do with these memories? You're not my responsibility. There's no place for you at Torchwood. Girlfriend: Lisa Hallett. Deceased. Excuse me, dried egg on your collar. You're the biggest monster of them all. Love the coat. Love the suit._

"You... you people, you get a kick from the danger," Ianto said suddenly, echoing his conversation with Tosh in the underground cell. "You get a rush. You could die out there, and yet you keep going."

Jack said nothing, just took a mouthful of his own hot chocolate.

"You get scared, you get hurt... But you keep going. You know I want to be part of that. You _know_ that—"

"Ianto—"

"If you've come to retcon me—"

"No—"

"It won't work on me, I know too much, I can remember—"

"Ianto, please—"

Ianto made an odd, strangled, horrible sound and leaned forward, his head in his hands and his shoulders shaking as he broke down. He sobbed as Jack put an arm around him, drew him back and held him.

"Jack, make it stop, make it stop, it hurts..."

Jack stroked Ianto's hair as the latter cried, feeling the Welshman shudder under him and give a muffled howl of pain into his shirt.

"Ianto, it's okay, I'm here," he whispered. "Shhh, shhh..."

Ianto groaned into his chest; seemed to pull himself together. "I'm sorry..." He wiped his eyes and nose, looking mortified and embarrassed, terribly exhausted and miserable.

Jack held him around the shoulders and waist and gently pulled him to his feet. "Come on. Let's get you to sleep. You're tired, you've been through a lot. You were amazing, Ianto."

Ianto didn't protest as Jack carefully eased him out of his jeans and shirt, helped him into bed, took out the rattling bottle of pills and eased out two sleeping pills. Ianto downed the last of his hot chocolate—now only lukewarm—with the pills and curled into his bed. Jack kissed him on the forehead and turned out the light, opting to lie on the couch and be there for when Ianto needed him, to give him meaning again.


	2. Coffee and Mornings

Ianto woke slowly, each slow breath married to a twinge of pain in his side. He looked at the clock on his bedside table. 11:37. Shit. Late for work. Was he going to work? He couldn't remember.

He sat up with difficulty, his head spinning, and limped out of his bedroom only to blink, nonplussed, when he saw Jack pottering around in his kitchen.

"Sir? Oh—right." Last night came pouring back into his memory.

"Ianto, we're not working. Drop the sir."

"Why are you still here? The Rift—"

"Can wait. We're all taking a day or two off. I'll go back to the Hub later and manage anything that comes through."

"I'm sorry about—" Ianto started, casting a despairing look at the lounge and the coffee table.

"Don't apologise, you were pretty out of it last night."

They stood for a moment, eyeing each other, Jack in Ianto's small kitchen and Ianto beside the coffee table.

"Coffee?"

"Thanks."

Ianto moved past him and put the jug on. As he moved through the familiar routine of coffeemaking, breathing in the rich fragrance, he began to feel more awake. Jack was sitting back on the lounge, thumbing absently through a paperback book Ianto had forgotten to put away.

Ianto came in holding the two coffees and sat down. His head was thumping and his ears were ringing slightly. He held his forehead and moaned softly.

"I'll get your pills," Jack said, getting up.

"Bathroom cabinet," Ianto croaked.

Jack returned a moment later, holding the small white tablets. Ianto thumbed them out of the foil packaging, gulped them down with his coffee and lay back on the sofa, sighing. Jack sat back down next to him.

"You should go, sir. Check up on the others."

"I have. They're okay."

"Thanks—thanks for this, Jack. But you should go."

"I really should." He had edged closer. Their knees were touching.

"I'll see you—" Ianto was cut off as Jack closed the decreasing distance between them with a kiss. Perhaps it was the headache, the pain in his ribs and the coffee whizzing through him, but Ianto found himself kissing him back, soft and slow—

He broke away. "Jack, this—"

"I know. I'm sorry. I thought—"

"You—you thought right," Ianto said quietly. "It's just... hard."

Jack was silent.

"You... you've been here to talk to me, even thought I hated you for what you did. You _helped_ me. You're like no-one else I've met... Just... these past few months have been... confusing..." he trailed off, hating the words that were floating into the open air, the words he had been dwelling over for so long, and yet at the same time feeling a thrill that tingled at the base of his spine when Jack met his gaze unwaveringly.

Jack kissed him again. Ianto wound his arms around his neck, deepening the kiss, ignoring the pain in his side. Jack's hand were carefully gripping his shoulder blades, getting closer and warmer—

Ianto moved forward into Jack's embrace, pushing him back, then something shifted in his side and he let out a cry of pain.

"Are you all right?"

Ianto grimaced, holding a hand to his side. "What do you think?"

Jack stood. "I think I should go."


	3. That For Which They Have No Words

**Hey, yay, last chapter. I wrote this in about half an hour so I apologise if it's a little bleh-y. I'm new at this so was pleasantly surprised when I opened my email account and found a gazillion messages saying people had favourited/watched this story/me. So thank you! Hope you like, people.**

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><p>Ianto went to work as usual a few days later. Every morning was the same: he'd arrive at the tourist front at around 6:30, tidy things up and do whatever he had to do there, then he'd go down into the Hub to make coffee and see if anything needed Archiving or organising before heading down to the cells to feed Janet and up to Myfanwy's nest to feed her meat and chocolate. Twenty minutes later Tosh would arrive, smiling a hello and gratefully taking the coffee that he'd have brewed for her. Then there'd be Owen, grumbling and demanding coffee, and finally Gwen, shouting hellos and talking loudly as she went on about Rhys and dinner and the latest episode of some TV show they'd watched.<p>

Mornings were always nice in an odd way.

Of course, this particular morning was different.

Everyone was still sore and shaken up, but they tried not to show it. Tosh worked and worked as she normally did, but was quieter than usual. When Ianto gave her the usual coffee she accepted it with a soft smile that told him she was doing okay. He squeezed her shoulder gently, letting her know he was glad. Owen seemed okay as well, mostly worried about his colleagues' health but after the checkups he had to carry out on each of them he deemed them all fine and was back to grumbling, complaining and teasing. He and Gwen were flirting a lot: sharing lingering glances and giggling. Tosh seemed upset by this, but they ignored her. Ianto saw this and idly remembered Jack's comment about Gwen and Owen being "otherwise engaged".

They all spent the day quietly, doing any overdue reports or paperwork, Tosh working on some new computer program and Jack sitting in his office being, as Owen put it, "a pretentious twat". It was only when Tosh picked up some Weevil sightings in Splott that Owen and Gwen volunteered to go and deal with them. The tension between the two was practically tangible as they took their gear and escaped the rapidly depressing air of the Hub.

When they got back an hour later, sporting muddy clothes and banter, Owen cleaned himself and Gwen up before Jack swept down the stairs and sent everyone home.

Ianto was, as always, last to leave, cleaning and processing the day's work. Jack was back up in his office, but when Ianto was sitting in his tourist office finishing a cup of coffee he'd made for himself while finishing off some documentation, he happened to look up and see Jack parting the beaded curtain and smiling at him.

They had no words for what happened. Neither of them did. It wasn't about taking advantage or sex for the fun of it. It was something neither of them could think about nor give a name to, it was just something they knew they had to do and if they didn't they'd rupture. On some basic level Ianto thought it was about hurt and comfort, about sensation and cataclysm, about skin and blankets. But it was something better than that.

Oh, so much better.

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><p><strong>Pretty much done. Mwahahaha. <strong>


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